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01 11 2000 Public Meeting Min , , !'" TOWNSHIP OF ORO-MEDONTE PUBLIC MEETING Tuesday, January 11, 2000 @ 7:00 p.m. PROPOSED ZONING BY -LAW AMENDMENT and Cone. 12, Part of Lot 8 and 9 Present: Staff Present: Also Present: Mayor Ian Deputy Councillor Councillor Councillor Councillor Sommers Councillor Ruth Fountain Don Bell McConnell Hough Jennifer Zieleniewski, CAO; Andria Leigh, Township Planner Gary Bell, Glen Stewart, Aileen Love, Dolores Powers, John Hawke, Charles & Cynthia Prescott, A Puma, Dorothy A Cooke, Gord King, Clive Baker, Ernest Nicklin, Stella Berryman, Alberdina Munro, Norma Fenn, June Elminowski, Bill Monger, Norma Carriere, Adrian & Marilyn Basaraba, Bill Soles, Bruce & Pat Porter, Debbie, Don & Patricia Hunt, Sheila English, Caren Schaefer, Robert & Nancy Duncan, Richard & Cecilia Jordan, Grace Wise, Lois Ness, Mavis Fairbarn, Betty Jacobs, Dorothy Evans, Thelma Link, Betty Johnson, Lillian Baker, Bernice King, Bob Kendrick, Hilda & Ted Allcoop, Carol Hines, Gord Miller, Nancy Hubbert, Jay Bryan, Franziska Hones, Marjorie McCurrach, Verna Smith, Thelma Halfacne, John Hare, E, M. Hall, E. L. Dryden, Ross & Marlene Morgan, Bernard Roach, J. H. Cresswell, Bill Duncan, Hill & Ruth Bailey, Judith & Ed Caron, Frank Hibbins, Jack West, Geoff Campey, John S. Langman, Allan Johnson, Garry Fell, Bruce Horne, Bill Dixon, Ellen & Don Hunter, Murray E. Hunter, Lynne Stoddart, Don & Sherry Vanderburg, Don & Ina Rutherford, Christina Hynd, Mrs. R. Ugolini, Chris Dixon, Mrs. & Jim Langman, Janet & Ed Fleming, Robert Schaefer, Earl, Mary & Margaret S. Robertson, Hilda Hill, Venner & Mary Lambert, Ron Hutchison, Bill Brennan, Dianne Roach, Nelson Robertson, Brian English, Tracey Horne, Frank Gosden, Cable 10 and VR News, William Fisher, AI Lewis, Dennis Sutton, Don Smith, Eric Line, June Karam, Ken Miller, Gail Mears, Gloria & George Braithwaite, Beryl & Norman Farren, Birdie Mitchell, Rudy Donnelly, Marion Skrzypczenski, Anne Gosden, Elizabeth and Stan Farrell, Doris M. Vyse, Gladys E. Ratcliffe, Kenneth & Margaret Tidbury, Norm & Olive Stringer, Warren & Barbara Talbot, Garnet Ricard, Marion Worby, Bryan Johnston, Sheila Duncan, Grace Berry, Barbara Massey, Bill Frampton, Mildred & Harold Lyons, Doreene & John Gordon, Jack Stacey, Art Guard, Ralph Berry, Brian E. Shelswell, Shirley & Roy " \ Jarvis, Lotte Kratz, Margarete Doerr, Ted & Shirley Bromley, Donald Munro, Rob Stewart, Dawn Patterson, R. E. Snider, Tom Tomkins, Walter Connell, Jack Fountain, Susan Grant (there was 1 name on the sign- in sheet that was illegible). Mayor Beard called the meeting to order and advised that all persons present would be afforded the opportunity of asking questions in respect to the proposed zoning by-law amendment. Mayor Beard requested all those in attendance to sign in on the sheets being circulated, and for each speaker to identify themselves for the record. It was noted that the Township had received correspondence with respect to the zoning by-law amendment from Injury and Wellness Management, from Nelson R. Robertson, from the County of Simcoe, from Dennis R. Sutton, from Jack Stacey, from Gail Mears, from Mrs. A Munroe, from Gordon & Josephine Heath, Elizabeth Farrell, Donovan Hunt, and William Gooshen and Sheila Gooshen. Ms. Andria Leigh, Township Planner, gave an overview of the location and the purpose and effect of the proposed zoning by-law amendment. Gary Bell, Land Use Planner from Skelton Brumwell & Associates in Barrie (applicant's consultant) - introduced Mr. Glen Stewart, applicant, Principle of Hillway Equipment Ltd. and G. H. Stewart Construction Inc. from Orillia, as well as Ann Gio, an aggregate resources planner for Skelton Brumwell & Associates: Gary Bell: "First, I am very pleased to announce that Mr. Stewart is obtaining an access to the 13th Line across the lands of Dr. Larry Booth and Mr. Allan Johnson's boundary. This traffic will come to and from County Road 11, across the private accessed road. We are not talking about, nor are we proposing, to have gravel trucks travelling and turning through the hamlet of Rugby. I commend the efforts and the agreement of these three gentlemen to you, and I recognize the hard work, the effort and the stress this has caused in the Rugby community. I have spoken to many of you individually, and I'm very pleased that your efforts and Mr. Stewart's efforts and the agreement of the other gentlemen has resulted in this access to the 13th Line from County Road 11. Now, if I might, Council, I will go a bit into background about the zoning application because the application about rezoning the land remains the same; what has changed in the last 24 hours is the access involvement. We made the rezoning application in June of 1998. Many of you know, you've been advised, that Mr. Stewart has had an interest in these lands for in the order of ten years, and he proceeded with application completely in June of 1998. In July of 1998, Oro Planning Advisory Committee and your Council resolved that a further impact study be done, that a haul route public road alternative south and north be completely investigated, and that every attempt to find an alternative route be investigated. Skelton Brumwell & Associates had their geologist, archeologist, planners, engineers, and environmental people all do their work to complete these studies. Mr. Stewart submitted all of this as Andria has described to both the municipality and the Ministry of Natural Resources, and Hillway Equipment has made an application for the pit licence. Many of you were at the information session last week in the Rugby Community Hall. This is a zoning by-law public meeting, and Andria has described to you the generalities of the zoning tests that are contained in the Official Plan, and without repeating them, I do want to indicate the importance of the designation. The top board is your Official Plan, and " \ this property as coloured in solid orange has been designated in your Official Plan as Mineral Aggregate Resources, and Andria described the objectives of the signing principals to you, that the municipality intends to protect the mineral aggregate operations with known mineral deposits in the areas with high potential for future resource use, and to ensure that those resource extraction activities are carried out with minimal environmental and social disruption. Those are important objectives, and the Official Plan goes on to establish the tests that must be met in order to have the zoning by-law adopted and the municipality proceed with its part of the pit licence application. Many of you ask, and I've shown here in orange, the complete extent of the mineral aggregate resources designation in the Official Plan, with a solid line to indicate the other pits in the area. There is one at the 10th Line, and a couple of pits at the 13th Line. This proposed pit is centered on the 1ih Line. Now, this is a zoning application, so I have coloured similarly the Township of Oro-Medonte's zoning by-law, showing the subject property in orange. Both sides of the 12th Line is currently zoned Mineral Aggregate Resources, which flags the presence of mineral aggregate resources to any and all and not every municipality does that. Some municipalities leave it zoned Agricultural; your municipality has identified the presence of aggregate even in the zoning by-law. The proposal is to rezone it Mineral Aggregate Resources One. In the way of background, the general public has an interest in aggregate resources as established by the Provincial Policy Statement, and there are a couple of references in here that I know Council knows about, but I want all to be aware of. The Provincial government in a Policy Statement says that mineral aggregate resources are important to the economy and will be protected for long term use. The Provincial Policy also says that as much of the mineral aggregate resources as is realistically possible will be made available and should supply the mineral resource needs as close to markets as possible. Many of you know that Glen's firm is from Orillia, an operator from Barrie and Orillia, and this is close to those markets. What I want to do here is to confirm for everybody - this is a drawing that I had up at the Rugby Hall and now the proposal is to have access to and from the pit along the north part of the Booth/Johnson properties, then south from the 13th Line past the pit entrances to two existing pits, and then to County Road 11, the Old Barrie Road at an intersection which has already been approved. There will be a joining of traffic for this last 600 meters, there will be an added impact that is not now described in our report because it has just happened, and that has become the added impact - the joining of pit traffic along an already approved road. The tests that any applicant must address in the environmental section, and I'm just going to refer you to the part of the particular studies or to the Site Plans that address these matters. The first is the natural environment, and we've conducted through a qualified environmental planner a review of the environment in and around the proposed pit to establish that the natural heritage features of this area, and there are some features that (inaudible) to the west of this site that are not to be affected by this proposed pit. The effect on the communities was largely an effect of the proposed truck traffic through Rugby, and we feel it is safe to say that that has been addressed. Agricultural resources, the Institute of Guelph identified these lands largely as Class 6, some of them are better but generally these are not prime agricultural lands although they are in farm fields now, and they will be returned to agricultural production after they are rehabilitated. Ground water resources, if you are concerned, this pit is a dry pit, it stays above the water table by the prescribed amount that is standard in the province, and its separation is adequate. There is also an Emergency Response and Procedures Plan . . \ that all pit operators are to conduct on top of good faith, responsible operations for the likes of Glen Stewart, so there will be no effect on the water table or on the area wells. We have dealt with the feasibility of the haul route and we've changed the haul route. Noise and dust are matters which are addressed in our report and also prescribed and dealt with in various notes and drawings as requirements on the Site Plan. We described those for you last week, and many of you came up and had a detailed look at the requirements. There is to be noise management from berms on site, views of the pit are only exposed at a distance, but it will be berms up close. Some of you have identified the need for additional berming and screening and we'll be dealing with that through the process. This municipality is quite interested in ensuring that the archeological heritage resources are not lost in the development application, and an inventory has been done of the site and there are no archeological resources here. A test of an added impact has indicated that there will be a joining of truck traffic, but there is no other immediate proximity and adjacency of pits at this location, unlike some other locations such as the ¡th Line. The operation, and I want to make sure we steer people right here - a pit licence application is required to layout in detail the existing conditions, the existing features of the property, and that has been done through topographical mapping and an analysis of the conditions of the area. A Site Plan then identifies and prescribes an operation of the property; where, when and how the aggregate resources are to be extracted, where are the berms, what is the noise management, what is the dust management, how are all of the essential impacts of aggregate extraction to be dealt with so that there are not problems off site? And finally, a pit licence is to identify and prescribe the order and the method of rehabilitation to establish the end use of progressive and an end use of a pit area back to, in this case, farm land. The three property owners here, two of which are active farmers in the area, all three of which are agreed that this property goes back to active agricultural production. These are long term uses. They are important uses. The tests were all laid out. Where do we go from here? Well, we bequeath to, I've made a very general overview because this is a public meeting, and I'm sure your questions will get asked that you're specifically interested in. So from here, we bequeath to answer any questions Mayor Beard may direct to us. We will be dealing with all of your correspondence written regarding the Aggregate Resources Act Application, or to the Municipal Council regarding the zoning application. We hope that we can then establish to Council's satisfaction that all of the tests have been met, and it is time to move forward with the rezoning application, subject to a development agreement establishing the details of the upgrades now to the 13th Line. In conclusion Mayor Beard, Council and the public, aggregate resource developments are difficult land use planning matters. We believe that we have done all of the work responsibly with a great willingness and the flexibility to do it and to redo it to establish an environmentally and socially responsible manner to proceed with aggregate extraction, which is important in the provincial and public interest. We believe that we have established that it is a good plan for this particular site, and good planning for the area and good planning in the provincial economic and development interest. Thank you." Mavor Beard: "We will now take questions from members of the public, and again I would ask you to state your name, and if you can approach the microphone, and I would remind you that the meeting is being recorded so that we have some proper minutes of it. So at this time, are there any members of the public who wish to ask questions at this time?" Bruce Porter: "We have a presentation." Mavor Beard: "You would like to make a presentation rather than ask a question?" Bruce Porter: "Yes sir." Mavor Beard: "Ok, I guess in the interest of the public, you may make it brief if you can. Go ahead and approach the microphone." Bruce Porter: "Your Worship, Members of Council. My name is Bruce Porter and I'm the President of the Big Cedar Residents Association. I have here 133 letters from residents of Big Cedar and 22 have signed a petition. At the present time, 24 of our residents are away and we cannot contact them. This represents in opposition to the pits 76% of our residents. We thought that maybe if we collected the letters, it would save your office staff a lot of opening of envelopes, etc. Here are the letters (handed to staff). The presentation is lengthy, but for the sake of time, we'll just walk you through this thing. The area we photographed for the cover page, we look at the intersection of Bass Lake Side Road and Concession 12. In the upper right hand corner, there's a hedge line, and that's the northern boundary of the pits. If you extend this a bit, for the photograph doesn't have where the haul route is now going, that will give you an idea of the close proximity to Big Cedar Estates. In all the presentations I've been to to date, and seven of the maps that are used in the presentations and reports from Hillway, don't even show Big Cedar as existing. Page one, the cover, first paragraph is our position with the Residents Association, 230 homes, and 360 senior citizens oppose this amendment to the zoning by-law. I've gone on to give a history of Big Cedar Estates, so that if you are not familiar with it - how long we've been around, how our association was formed, what our by-laws are, how we operate - and at the present our reserve funds are in excess of $300,000. All the leases at Big Cedar are identical, all costs of the property within the community are distributed equally among the members. The next page is a request that we made from the real estate appraiser about what would happen to our values. It is self-explanatory, but if the 1ih end of Bass Lake Side Road is to be used, we are looking at a 25% decrease in value for real estate. Our concern is maintaining the property value to be this close to a pit operation of this size. At present, Big Cedar Estates is assessed at 17.25 million dollars. Our property taxes last year were $234,000, and on top of that, our residents pay an operating fee for sewage, water, television and operation of the park of about $415,000 a year. " , Reasons for opposing the amendment I think are probably self- explanatory - the number of vehicle trips, and now with the cross haul route, actually it will be closer to us now than it would be if it was going through Rugby. The zoning amendment concerns - we're concerned about the changing of the zoning because of extraction. The next page is regarding the haul routes, but that really doesn't exist now with the news from Mr. Stewart. Again, the alternate haul route concerns Fire and Emergency Rescue, Ambulance Services, this really wouldn't apply at this point other than access to the pit on the 13th, I understand there are no restrictions as to trucks and where they can travel. We're talking 54,000 trucks a year at maximum capacity. 27,000 of those could be using Bass Lake Side Road and accessing the 1 ih Concession. We have safety concerns regarding the use of the 1 ih Line and Bass Lake Side Road. The next page (page 8) - a big concern of ours was the time frame we were allowed to review these documents from the official notice. From the date of December 10th when it was published, we had 15 business days. The Township meeting was published on December 20th, and that give us 13, and from the public information meeting they had from Hillway to this meeting was 4 days. And there are many of us that did not have a fantastic holiday season because we were working on this thing. The Council resolution was regarding the private haul route and you had made a request that Mr. Stewart - on July 29th, Council resolution was that Hillway Equipment investigate and list all the contacts with private haul routes. The last contact was January 28th and that was 6 months prior to your request. At this point, I would like to ask that three residents, of all the letters we picked out three that cover the majority of thoughts of the residents of Big Cedar, and I'd like to call first on Mr. Ralph Berry and Mr. Dennis Sutton. and then Mr. Bill Soles. When they are finished, I'll walk you through the rest of this report. Mr. Berry." Mr. Ralph Berrv: "Your Worship and Members of Council, it is a privilege for us to be here tonight to address the issues that are of concern to us regarding this application. The fact that Mr. Stewart has been successful in obtaining clearance, or however it was obtained, to change the haul route from the 12th Concession to cross country, at (I take it) his expense and his resonance, has altered my presentation considerably. (inaudible due to changing of tape). .... use the 12th Concession and the intersection at the 11th could possibly be safe under the circumstances with 54,000 trips being made daily, when there was an intersection already involved. Yearly, not daily. Few would dispute the need for industry and commerce in any municipality. The promotion of industry and commerce can be beneficial to all living in most neighbourhoods. The establishment of clean industry is always to be sought. We always hope to include things that will best enhance our lives and exclude what is obviously damaging to us personally and to our entire neighbourhood as well. Regularly we choose members from our community who will clearly represent us on boards and committees. This we have done with the election of Council members, and we naturally expect members of Council to give all diligence to their responsibilities and to wisely decide how business will be done. The application by Hillway Equipment, Mr. Stewart, to expand his or their aggregate operations to include many more hectares between the 1ih I'" . , and 13th Concessions is a matter for Council's wise and careful consideration. If a permit is granted to Hillway, hundreds of Township residents and taxpayers will be adversely affected. It couldn't happen otherwise. We will, they will, be adversely affected. And the traverse of a huge fleet of very large and heavily laden trucks estimated at, by their estimation, that over 54,000 trips annually over roads in front of and through long established residential communities in our view would be a serious problem for years to come. Twenty-five years as they estimate. And the extraction and crushing of as much as 650,000 metric tonnes of aggregate annually would be the cause of constant noise, dust and road congestion on a daily basis for 8 or more months per year, despite the applicant's assurances to the contrary. I don't believe at all that you can carry on such an operation to such an extent without causing noise - constant noise - dust and road congestion, danger, the smell of fuel being burned and so forth in all of those trucks. The notion that all this could be done without serious impact and dislocation, environmental damage, road dangers and impairment of our well-being, we're talking about people in Rugby and people in Big Cedar Estates, 400 people in Big Cedar Estates roughly alone, and I'm not sure of the number in the rest of the areas. But, such an operation will impair our well-being generally and to suggest anything else would be illogical. We would ask therefore that the permit be denied, or at the very least modified, so as to prevent this operation from using either the 1ih or 13th or Bass Lake Side Road as routes of access. Now that's been addressed apparently, and we hope that that will carry on to a proper conclusion. Now about the operation of the pit itself, we would like to see the application, or the approval of the application, modified so as to prevent pit and haulage operations beginning no earlier than 7:00 a.m. and no later than 7:00 p.m. daily. We have on that yellow sheet, indication that they want to run trucks until 1 0:00 at night, and start them at 6:00 in the morning, Monday through Saturday, but we would strongly urge as well that whatever permit may be granted, specifically prohibit operations on Sunday. Now, I have a reason for saying that - I travel to church in Orillia on a weekly basis. Last year when Casino Rama was about to open, was that last year? - it seems to have been going on forever, when it was about to open, I think it was the parking that was about to be completed before the named completion date, and Sunday after Sunday until that was done, or whatever they were hauling for, Mr. Stewart's own trucks I saw Sunday after Sunday hauling out of the pits that now exist along the 11th in that direction, and going towards Casino Rama - where it ended I don't know. So that's why I mentioned about Sundays. There is no specific mention about Sunday, but it ought to be exempted if the permit is granted. To permit loaded or unloaded gravel trucks be used either on the 12th or Bass Lake Side Road 54,000 times annually would create unimaginable congestion and noise and disruption, and be extremely dangerous. Should the pit operate from April to November annually, 260 truck trips daily would be made for 208 days over that 8 month period. This Monday morning, I went in at 7:00 into town and followed 2 trucks into Orillia that were fully loaded and coming out of the existing pits. So it doesn't stop at the end of November. Here it is January and they're hauling, so it's at least an 8 month period, and probably upward to 12. So the questions facing Council today as I see it, and hopefully many of us see it, are these: how would such an operation impact approximately 500 local and area residents, most of whom are seniors, most are seniors I expect? How would we be impacted, all for the benefit of one operator? And how fair would that be? And what would be the actual economic I"" . , return to the Township residents, keeping in mind that the Township is made up of people represented by Council and other committees and so forth? What would the actual economic return to the Township and its residents be, considering the constant cost of roadway maintenance? That alone, I saw 2 trucks going along Bass Lake Side Road, 1 wasn't yours and the other wasn't yours either, but they were fully loaded, they were overloaded - if I ever saw an overloaded truck, these 2 were overloaded. They were on the Bass Lake Side Road today, and the frost was obviously coming out of the ground today if it ever was in, and these vehicles had to be doing damage to the road. So we're talking about road maintenance. Close evaluation of these issues would probably reveal that the Township would suffer a net loss and its people would suffer as well as taxpayers. Therefore, if there is no benefit except to the operator, why should it be approved? Thank you." Dennis Sutton: "My name is Dennis Sutton. Your Worship and Members of Council, ladies and gentlemen. My purpose of addressing you this evening is like most of the others at this meeting tonight. I wish to voice my objection to Council in considering the rezoning of farmland between the 1ih and 13th Concessions of Oro-Medonte for gravel extraction. I would like to introduce myself to you at this time; as I said before, my name if Dennis Sutton. I've lived in Oro Township most of my life. I was born and raised on a farm in Shanty Bay. I joined the Barrie Police Service and spent 31 years in this profession. I was looking forward to my retirement and returned back to my home in Oro-Medonte. My wife and I selected Big Cedar Estates, as we felt it offered all of the services that would make life easier as we entered our golden years. I realize now that all of the things which attracted us to Big Cedar Estates in Oro-Medonte could soon disappear in the name of progress. I have drafted up 2 letters to this Council, dated the 24th of December, 1999 and January 6, 2000, which outline my objections and concerns surrounding this issue. I don't think there is any need to elaborate on those - you all should have copies of them. As we are aware - we all are aware - this is not a short term project which is proposed by Hillway Equipment. We are looking at least 25 years. I realize that Oro-Medonte Council is caught in a difficult position in coming to a successful conclusion on this issue. I feel that you will make the only decision which is right for the 250 households that will be directly affected, that being a refusal to the application for rezoning for the purposes of gravel extraction. Let's try to keep this area of Oro-Medonte in the pristine condition that we so dearly love and wish to make our homes in. Previous Councils and Members of Parliament have assisted in selecting and establishing Big Cedar Estates as a retirement community. We also have Bass Lake Provincial Park nearby. I don't think we should lose sight of the effects that a gravel pit of this magnitude could have on our tourist trade. Finally, this beautiful hamlet of Rugby, these people have the most to lose if you allow the expansion of these pits. I trust that this Council will not be persuaded by the (inaudible) of any corporation that have one goal only, and that is to make huge profits. Please remember the rights of the approximate 400 electorate. They are depending on you to make the right decision on this matter. This will affect their lives forever. I thank you for allowing me this time to share my concerns on this issue." Bill Soles: "Mr. Mayor, Councillors, friends and neighbours. My name is Bill Soles. My wife Nancy and I moved to Big Cedar Estates almost 16 months ago. I am a member of the Board of Directors at Big Cedar, and in that capacity, I attended a public meeting on behalf of our Board at the Oro-Medonte Township Administration offices on November 2,1999. The meeting was called to discuss the watershed study of the Oro Moraine. III'" Please bear with me as the extraction of aggregate is very relevant to the well-being of the Moraine. As background, I will refer to the much publicized public concern over the development of the Oak Ridges Moraine, which lies south of Barrie. David Lewis Stein, the Toronto Star's Urban Specialist, has done an excellent job over the past several weeks in bringing the spot light to bear on the problems concerning the Oak Ridges Moraine. This invaluable Moraine stretches 160 kilometers of Southern Ontario and provides drinking water for Aurora and Newmarket and feeds 30 rivers, including the Humber, the Don, the Rouge, and Mimico, Highland and Etobicoke creeks. Our Oro Moraine is smaller, stretching from Bass Lake to Tiny Township, covering about 26,700 acres of land. It is the head water for watersheds going into Lake Simcoe, Georgian Bay, the Minesing Swamp, Bass Lake, Little Lake and Orr Lake. It contributes about 32,400 million litres of water to underlying aquifers each year. This is about the same amount of water that a city of 200,000 people would use annually. The Moraine acts as a giant sponge, absorbing water and filtering it as it descends into the aquifers. Our Oro Moraine is just as vital to the well-being of the communities which obtain water from these aquifers as the Oak Ridges Moraine is to the far greater number south of us. Part of the problem is the many interests that vie for consideration in developing the land. There are environmental interests that wish the old forest and wetland portions of the Moraine to be declared as permanent preserves. There are developers who wish to build housing, resorts and golf courses. There is the aggregate industry that wishes to continue to extract the superior aggregate available on the fringes of the Moraine. There are water bottlers who wish to draw upon the water supply to provide "pure" water to consumers. The Township of Oro-Medonte is to be commended for initiating the groundwater study. It is estimated that we are at about the same stage of development that Aurora was 30 years ago, and that had Aurora embarked upon such a study, they might not be facing a water problem today. However, this study is definitely long-term. The initial phase will be for approximately ten months, but it will take a period of years to compile sufficient data to assist in development decisions. For many of those in attendance at the meeting, the concern was immediate and they were looking for immediate action to protect the Moraine and the water source. Make no mistake, our supply of water is not unlimited, and no substantial amount of new fresh water is being produced on this earth. What we have is what we got. The engineering experts state that the users of Oro Moraine water have no immediate problem. However, they are dealing with data which is probably as accurate as the data that fisheries officials had available when they established limits for the now stripped cod fishery. Dave Sharpe, a research scientist for the Geological Survey of Canada, in referring to the Oak Ridges Moraine, is quoted as saying that 'We just don't have enough information about how the Moraine absorbs and discharges water.' I am certain that the same holds true for the Oro Moraine. This brings us to the matter at hand. Presently Oro-Medonte gives up millions of tonnes of gravel and sand each year, to the aggregate industry. The removal of such massive tonnage of aggregate in effect constitutes a violation of the Moraine land, and is potentially a source of destruction of the water supply. This aggregate to be extracted at present acts as a slow filter of waters entering the ground water aquifers and assist in the purification of those waters. The extraction of aggregate to the proposed depth of one and one half meters above the water table virtually ensures that the water will suffer from contamination. I realize that the Township and regional governments have limited powers to restrict development of these lands. They are supposed to follow provincial "guidelines", issued in 1991. I also realize that the Township is not in a position to verify or deny the effect of aggregate extraction on these aquifers, but Oro-Medonte has contributed more than its share of aggregate and assumed more than its share of risk to the water supply. No matter how long it takes to determine the potential effect of this extraction on our water supply, I believe it only prudent to withhold any aggregate extraction permits until such a time as appropriate testing results in acceptable conclusions to this question. In concluding my report to the Board of Big Cedar, I stated that I was not suggesting any immediate action on the part of the Big Cedar Board, but that we should be collectively aware of what is going on, and be prepared to become active should any political movement develop within our community. I now believe that the time has come. Mr. Mayor, Councillors, I strongly suggest that the Township impose an indefinite moratorium on all new development on the Moraine. If and when the residents of this Township through their Councillors determine that additional development of the Moraine lands is warranted, is safe, the land will still be there, the aggregate will still be there. But if you allow development to continue, without assurances that no permanent damage will result, we may find the damage to be irreversible. Mr. Mayor, Councillors, you see here the interest, and yes, the passion, that Oro-Medonte residents show when they feel that their standard of life is threatened, that their quiet living environment is under siege. I believe that they will display the same emotion over the revelation that their water supply is also endangered. Mr. Mayor, Councillors, friends and neighbours, I thank you for listening to me." Bruce Porter: "Those 3 gentlemen just about conveyed the feelings of all the people in Big Cedar Estates and it's a summary of the 133 letters that we have here. The next 2 pages on this presentation are just quotes taken from residents' letters that when you have nothing to do, you could breeze over them. To give you a - the first one from Gord and Josephine Heath was about the loss of value and tax loss, Stan and Betty Farrell talking about pollution, trucks and equipment, the (inaudible) how would you feel if this was next door to you? Mr. and Mrs. Campey's concern was the peace and beauty of the area. The next 2 paragraphs are from Charles and Cynthia Prescott, and it was a suggestion regarding the use of the 1 ih Concession, and a suggestion that an underpass be put on the 1ih and make the pits totally not accessible. Charles and Doris (inaudible) is regarding water supply and (inaudible). Page 12, I don't think needs to be read; it's just a reminder of the Oro- Medonte Official Plan and the vision of what it should be. These features include the rolling uplands areas and the recharged ground water. I've noted some items of the Official Plan that you could refer to. We'll get over to Page 14, and again that continues on there. Same with Page 15. There is an appendix at the back that we got regarding the Official Plan where we got the information from. On Page 16, we the residents of Big Cedar are extremely concerned, not only with the supply of our water, but about the possibility of pollution of this supply due to this mining operation to within 1.5 meters of the water table. The rape and pillage of this area may well be an ecological catastrophe in the making. This Moraine and others are often called the "rain barrel" for a large area made up of fresh rock, clay and sand that acts as a huge sponge soaking up snow, rain into the subterranean reservoirs. This Moraine provides not only the drinking water for much of the area, but also feeds the headwaters of major water courses and in turn of recharged lakes. A few moments ago you heard from Mr. Soles, a resident of Big Cedar. We ask you to include his contribution in our report. At this time, we must place all our trust and confidence in you, the Mayor and Council of the Township of Oro-Medonte to make the proper decision, This decision will not only have an impact on present residents of Big Cedar, Rugby and surrounding areas, but will affect all who follow them in years to come. Some recommendations: Basic recommendation is that the proposed by- law zoning be denied; we strongly suggest on behalf of the residents that the Township impose an indefinite moratorium on all new development on the Moraine as suggested in the presentation of Mr. Soles. If granting these permits is allowed, it should only be made with the condition exempting the private haul route (inaudible), but this problem has been answered and the following roads be declared and posted as Non Truck Routes, with the exception of local delivery. Away from this report, I have for the last 2 days sat in my office overlooking Bass Lake Side Road and for 2 days, every 10 minutes there has been a gravel truck going one way or the other. For 2 full days! Some residents told me that it looks like somebody was paying somebody to run gravel trucks (inaudible). Bass Lake Side Road and the intersection of the 1ih Concession in an easterly direction to the Bass Lake Side Road and the 13th Concession needs to be posted as Non Truck Routes with the exception of local delivery. Concession 12 at the intersection of Bass Lake Side Road and Concession 12 in a southerly direction to Old Barrie Road. Raise the berm on the north side of the pits to either 4.5 meters (inaudible). Operation of the pits on a Monday to Friday basis - I'm not as kind as Mr. Berry - from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p,m. - no pit operation on Saturdays and Sundays, and reduce the lights at 9:00 p.m. These are only a few concerns of the residents (inaudible due to changing of the tape). A letter to the Ministry of Natural Resources from our residents' association is being drafted and we will send a copy to Council. We and our neighbours moved to this country location in order to escape city limits. The neighbouring land was zoned either agricultural wetland or occupied by a wildlife preserve and a provincial park. We did not wish to be plagued by industrial noise or traffic. In effect, the rezoning of the neighbouring lands, if you will, would become an industrial site and would constitute a breach of faith on the part of Oro-Medonte. All 360 residents of Big Cedar take great pride in their residential-operated community, and all we hope is that we can still save Big Cedar Estates. It's a good place to call home and a great place to come home to. Thank you ladies and gentlemen." Don Hunt: "Your Worship and Members of Council, my name is Don Hunt. I live on the Old Barrie Road East at 1976, which puts me about 100 meters from the intersection of the County Road 11 and the 1 ih Line. I am also the Chairperson of the concerned citizens of Rugby and area, and as such, I am also going to make a presentation. I don't want you to panic when you see the size of the information I'm handing in to you. I'm not going to read it all - it's 27 pages long - we'd be here until next year. We also have, along with myself, Mrs. Tracey Horne, Brian English and Nelson Robertson, and they all have short presentations to make in conjunction. We decided for our interests to split up our presentations. My presentation is just basically going to deal with the legislation that is in effect to date. We in essence completely object to the application of Hillway Equipment for a Category 3 Class "A" licence to access the aggregate from a pit of 110.2 acres. Now we all know the location of that. The reasons for objecting are multitude and are based on provincial documents which state how the land should be utilized, moulded, protected to ensure that a co-ordinated intelligent plan will be followed, one which protects the citizens, wildlife, recreation and lifestyle of the area in question. Our first set of objections is based on the Provincial Policy Statement issued under Section 3 of the Planning Act, effective May 22,1996 order in Council No, 764-96. All of these items are included in the letter that I will hand in - I don't have access to a photocopier and I just finished this at 5:00 tonight, so I cannot possibly give you all a copy of it, but I do have a copy for you (Mayor?) and a copy for you Mr. Bell. In the preamble, paragraph 2 states that Planning authorities such as yourselves have regard to the Policy Statement issued under the Act. These words shall have regard to or are (inaudible) no room for interpretation. They are absolutes. As our elected members of Council, you are not only our voice but our Planning authorities. A moderate annual tonnage was calculated at 325 tonne per year, generating 27,128 trips per year by gravel trucks. The full operation is 54,256. I just want to quickly address the haul route. While I am very, very pleased that they are going overland, it still does not solve a number of problems. It still does not solve the air pollution, it does not solve the access of the trucks to the 1ih Line. We are asking that there be absolutely no access to this gravel pit from the 1ih Line, that there be no entrance to the pit whatsoever. If they are ~oing to go overland, there needs to be an underpass under the 12 Line. Too many people use the 1ih Line. Fire, ambulance, police, senior citizens, eve~one uses the 12th Line, and if we have trucks even trying to cross that 12 Line... I myself am a detective and I feel that this is a fatal accident waiting to happen - I guarantee it - I've had 18 years of policing, Mr. Sutton has 31, I've investigated too many fatal accidents, been to too many industrial accidents, been to too many scenes where people have been injured by gravel trucks to say that this is not a hazard. It is definitely a hazard, and it cannot happen. The overland route also, while I do commend Mr. Stewart for negotiating it, only happened as a result of the information meeting on January 5th when Larry Booth stood up and said "Hey, I did accept your offer. I did phone and give you a counter-offer, but you never came back to me." And the only reason this happened was because of Mr. Booth. Now based on the Provincial Policy Statement, in the (inaudible) paragraph 1, the Act directs you on matters of planning and directs you on safety. It directs you on environment and public health. You have to ask the question how does a 273 acre gravel pit placed a half a kilometer from Rugby protect the environment and public health? There's only one answer - it does not in any way protect us. It cannot protect the environment a half a kilometer from us, you cannot protect our public health. It will harm the environment through dust, noise, air pollution, accidental spillage of hydraulic fluid and diesel fuel. There cannot help but be over 25 years a spill of some kind. No matter what you do, there will be dust, especially in our position because of prevailing northwest winds. Whatever you do to restrict the dust makes no matter - we're still going to be covered in dust. Those people who have asthma, those people who have breathing difficulties - are they even going to be able to go outside? The noise is going to be - we have 3 pits; we have 2 on the 13th and now we're going to put one on the 1ih. Tracey Horne will speak to that because I don't even know if a noise impact study done by Hillway takes into account the 3 pits. Paragraph 3 in the Provincial Policy Statement talks about reducing the potential for public cost or risk to Ontario residents by directing development away from areas where there is a risk to public health or safety or property damage. A pit of this size placed so close to 2 communities, Rugby and Big Cedar, cannot do anything else but endanger our health through contamination of the water supply. If you're only going to go a meter and a half from the water, it's going to get through. It's going to hit our water. As for property damage, we deem a 20-25% drop in the value of our homes damaging. If we value the home, 230 homes at Big Cedar, roughly 100 homes in the immediate area, some of a greater value and some of a smaller value at $125,000 based at a 25% drop, we lose $31,250 on our home. My home drops from $125,000 and it drops $31,000. If you multiply that by 330 homes, this area will lose $10,312,500. in property value. I venture to say this pit won't make that in 25 years. If that does happen, you have to reassess 330 homes. You will lose taxes, a huge amount, from 330 homes, The only 1 person who is going to benefit from this pit is going to be Mr. Stewart. You cannot benefit by it. You will also note in paragraphs C, D, and F of Section 1 of the Provincial Policy Statement that developments into prime agricultural areas are only permitted under 2 exceptions. I won't get into those because they are reproduced, but none of those meet Hillway's proposal. As far as paragraph F goes, I do want to mention that it states that any land use path which may cause environmental or public health and safety concerns will be avoided. Again, there is absolutely no room for you to say maybe, could be, we could put it here, we might put it there. It will be avoided. Once again these words are an absolute that a pit so close to a rural settlement area, which is Rugby, is a hazard to public health as a proposed haul route. But that has supposedly been dealt with. You will note that the pit is placed between Rugby and our natural recharge area. Between the dust pollution, noise pollution, possible contaminant spills, our water supply is at great risk of drying up and/or being unfit for human consumption. Another absolute prohibition is in Section 1,13, Paragraph F: Long term economic prosperity will be supported by optimizing the long term availability and use of agricultural and other resources and facilities such as aggregate activities and sensitive land uses which are appropriately designed, buffered and/or separated from each other to prevent adverse effects from odor, noise and contaminants. Now this is only the Provincial Policy that you people base your Official Plan on. You will note that in Section 21 how agricultural areas will be protected for agriculture. Now, they say it's not prime. I say it is prime, because I see it everyday, They're being farmed every year. There's cattle on it every year. As far as the pit not being visible, Mr. Bell went down to the Bass Lake Side Road and took a look out and he could barely see it. All he had to do was drive to the 13th Line. That's a kilometer from the house. Drive there. Drive down that road west. You'll see where the pit's going to be. You can't miss it - that whole area will be gone. In regard to the environment, the proposed pit excavation is 'in very close proximity to a Level 1 environmentally protected forest'. Resulting dust, fumes, gas and oil will no doubt find its way into the aquifer and air, thus poisoning the trees, vegetation and interfere with the wildlife that is dependent on this as a corridor to move from one section of land to another. Many of the aforementioned trees are already dying from acid rain and other airborne pollutants - why add to it? Adjacent lands are covered under Section 2.3.2 and Section D1.4 of the Oro-Medonte Official Plan with the same provisos. These lands have been designated by the Couchiching Conservancy in the Natural Heritage Action Plan as part of the landscape. They took a look at that area, studied it and said this whole area is part of the landscape and to maintain it for its beauty. Now we're talking about digging it up and carting it off! That doesn't make any sense to me. Section 2.4.1 advises that the quality and quantity of ground water and surface water and the associated natural function of water to reach our discharge area, aquifers and head waters will be protected or enhanced. I don't see how we're doing that. I don't see how we're doing that at all! If we're going within 5 feet of that, that's one bucketful. The operator goes "Oops!" and we've got water coming up. It's too close. These sections very clearly leave no room for interpretation by the very usage of the words "shall be", "will be". This is perfectly phrased in language that commands and allows for no fluctuation in the application of these policies and sections by Planning authorities. Now that's the Provincial Policy Statement. I just want to very lightly touch on the Official Plan by Oro-Medonte. The first thing I want to read to you is something that I believe this Council may have written. It's the Vision that you saw for Oro-Medonte. It's Section Ai of the Official Plan adopted by Council on February 5, 1997. I'm only going to read 2 paragraphs, that's paragraph 2 and paragraph 3. According to the people of Oro-Medonte, the excellent quality of life is what makes the Township a desirable place to live. This quality of life is created in a large part by the rural character of the area, open countryside, farmland, extensive wood areas, Lake Simcoe, Bass Lake and a number of small settlement areas. Rather than being dominated by man-made structures and landscaped yards, the Township has an open, relatively natural and rural character. These are the qualities that, taken together, contribute to the identity of the community that is of the greatest importance to the residents. The Township has a number of significant environmental topographical features that contribute to the sense of place felt by many of the Township's residents. These features include the rolling upland areas that recharge groundwater to the headwaters of 6 water beds, the vast forest tracks, the healthy wetland areas that support diverse wildlife communities - these areas taken together form parts of a natural heritage system that extends over a wide area of the Township. And those are words written by Council and I believe written by this Council, if I'm not mistaken. This is an election year, and with an election every 4 years, that takes you back to 1996, and this was adopted in 1997. So you wrote that. I couldn't say this better myself! Section 2 of the Oro-Medonte Plan builds on the vision. It contains principles to be followed on planning development of lands. 2.1 speaks of protecting the significant environmental features and associated natural functions. Paragraph 2 refers to the natural environment, its values, opportunities, limits and constraints. These are words that should guide your decision. Paragraph 3 states that land use planning shall contribute to the maintenance, protection and enhancement of water and related resources. Paragraph 4, Section 2.1, the Oro Moraine is the heart of the natural heritage system in the Township. This area requires protection from incompatible activities and uses that would have a negative impact on the critical natural features and ecological functions associated with the Moraine. A gravel pit going down to within 5 feet of that doesn't protect or enhance. Paragraph 6 speaks of water quality and any changes, and further states that no development will be permitted that will result in a negative impact to the critical functions and process of these features. Based on these paragraphs, the proposed gravel pit is placed in an area which ignores and violates each of these principles. And this is from your own Official Plan. Now moving on, everything in Section 2 speaks of preservation, protection of the rural character, water and farmlands. Section D3 continues to seek to preserve and promote the rural character of the Township, the maintenance of open countryside, to prevent the intruding of land uses which are incompatible to the rural character and/or resource activities in the area. Section D5 continues the concept to protect mineral aggregates and to ensure that extraction activities are carried out with minimal environment and social cost. As already referred to, the loss of property value and taxation alone is too high a social cost for the citizens of the Township to pay. Environmentally the pit, according to Hillway Limited, will have no impact. Anyone with a shred of common sense knows that this cannot be true. The trucks, the dust, the noise, the contaminants and danger to water will all affect the environment in a large area, including the bordering environmentally protected area that it's adjacent to. D5.1, which I think is argued and referred to about protecting mineral aggregate operations of known mineral deposits in areas of high potential for future resource, but it also goes on to say to ensure that the extracted activities are carried out with minimal environmental and social trauma to minimize conflict among incompatible land uses. The assessment of environmental impact, we're all aware that was referred to by Andria Leigh as being subjective to the requirements of Section D5.3.1.2 and D5.3.1.3, and also Section G3, it has to conform to Section G3 too, not just those 2 sections, but it has to conform to Section G3, which is far more indepth than these 2 sections that we're looking at here. You have to refer to Section G3. I'm not going to read it all because it's very, very extensive on what has to be put into this environmental impact study, but I am going to refer to 1 thing - what an ElF should demonstrate where applicable that the proposed use will not discharge any substance that could harm air quality, ground water, surface water, associated plant and animal life (paragraph 8); paragraph C, not interfere with ground water to the extent that it would adversely effect ground water supply for any use; paragraph G not significantly it might effect the scenic qualities of the area. In addition, the ElF shall demonstrate that there will be no negative impact resulting from the proposed use on the significant natural features. These features include areas - there are a number of them listed here - of natural and scientific interest. This borders on an area of natural and scientific interest and life science. It borders from within 50 meters to, in the southwest corner, almost O. Section 85 talks about land use compatibility which I suggest that you take a look at. Included in my appendix are maps from the natural heritage that I refer to. And lastly in conclusion, it is abundantly apparent that the proposed gravel pit by Hillway Equipment Ltd. will drastically impact the natural landscape, environment, citizens and water. The social cost to the Township and landowners in the immediate area far outweighs the need to extract gravel from this particular site. In making your decision, we have supplied you, our elected representatives, with pertinent legislation to assist you in making this decision. We remind you that you are our voice, our protectors and our only means of enforcing the applicable laws. Do we approve this pit and risk our health, water, property values and children all for the sake of some gravel? Where is the logic in that? How does that conform to the Provincial Policy Statement, Oro-Medonte Official Plan and the Natural Heritage Action Plan? The cost is too great; the risk is too severe to take. Given that this is a volatile situation, we further ask that voting by you on this matter be made a public record, so that we, your constituents, will know who is speaking for us and who is speaking against us in this matter. Should you decide to ignore the relative legislation and allow this pit, we ask that the effects of the pit be minimized. This is also in your power, Section D5 of the Official Plan. Further, an indepth study of the environmental impact must be done to ensure compliances with the sections mentioned. The studies prepared by or for Hillway Equipment are outdated and misleading. Examples of this are the noise study done in Sydenham where we went up to Sydenham or just borrowed a noise study from a Sydenham gravel pit. I may be mistaken, but I think that was 1998 that was done. Why would we not do one at Mr. Stewart's present gravel pit here on the 13th Line? The answer I got on January 5th was that all gravel pit equipment is the same. Well then if it's all the same, do it here! Do it in our area! While all gravel equipment may be the same, all topography is not the same. All sound does not carry the same in all areas. We have 3 pits in this area. I can't tell you that Sydenham had 3 pits. So we want a new study done, one that is current, one that is up-to- date, done in this area and that is pertinent to this area. It's ridiculous to have one from Sydenham! What has that got to do with us? The traffic study done at the 14th Line and County Road 11 instead of at the 1ih - why would we have a traffic study at the 14th? What has that got to do with us? I don't understand that one at all. And if I'm not mistaken (inaudible) I'm doing this part by memory, that was done in 1996. What has that got to do with the year 2000? This same report also stated that there was a good view, and I'm only mentioning these things with the haul route - that there is a good view from the intersection of the 12th and County Road 11. Anyone who has ever traveled this line knows the opposite is true. If you follow the law and stop before the stop sign, you cannot possibly see left or right. You have to pull out, and once you pull out, you actually have to pull out onto the westbound lane to see either left or right because of natural features that are there and because of the old historical fire hall that was built into the ground on Mr. Robertson's property. You can't see there, How anybody in good conscience could say that, tells me that they never ever came up and took a look, They just wrote it. Nobody can say that if they came and drove that route - they just wrote it! So we're saying that these reports are flawed, and if they're flawed, then the misguiding studies break each and every report submitted for and on behalf of Hillway is in question, If we could find these little flaws, then how can we believe any of the other reports? So what we are asking for - we're asking that studies be done - I don't know what studies that Andria Leigh had referred to, but we're asking that all the studies be redone by firms contracted by Council, billed to Glen Stewart, that are current, that are up-to-date and not misleading. You have to make an intelligent decision on this, and you have to make it on proper facts, not outdated facts, not facts from other areas, not facts that have nothing to do with this particular area, You can't base your decision on the noise because it only talks about 1 pit in Sydenham; it doesn't talk about our area. You can't base your decision on traffic because it has nothing to do with us. You can't base your decision on any of these reports as far as I'm concerned, and when it comes down to it, and Mrs. Tracey Horne as part of our group assigned to study these reports will have more for you, such as people who signed reports who admitted in phone calls that they never even came up here. Never even saw the place, yet they signed reports. Now how you can possibly take these reports and make a decision is beyond me. Just beyond me. One lady that we spoke to said, "How are you going to hear anything? You all live in the country and you all have long driveways." So if we take these people who wrote these reports at their word, they haven't even been up here! If you've seen my driveway, it's not long - well it's long enough that my boys complain about shoveling it, but it's not long! The Horne's driveway is not long - there's a number of people that don't have long driveways. They live close to the road. So we're asking you to disregard all of these reports - they're useless, they're meaningless, Again, I commend Mr. Stewart for getting this overland route so quickly, being as it only came to light on January 5th, but again we're saying that there has to be an underpass. Having any trucks whatsoever on the 12th, crossing the 1zth etc. is not good. There needs to be an underpass there. Further, to protect our water, Hillway must be restricted to a 20 foot buffer zone between our water supply and the excavation. We once again remind you that it's your duty to represent your constituents, to speak for us - only our Township Council can stop this pit, or in this case, the effects of the pit. We ask you to stop this proposal and protect us from the incompatible land use, the loss of our water supply, our natural landscape, our agricultural areas, to protect our public health and extreme social trauma. Again, I want you to remember the vision that was written in the Oro- Medonte Official Plan. Read this vision, study this vision, memorize this vision, and then ask yourself whether you can in good conscience approve this proposal by Hillway Equipment Ltd. and you yourself live with the results. I know that we cannot. Anyways, that's pretty much alii have to say. I'm not going to go on any longer because I've taken up enough of your time. I thank you so very, very much for listening to me. I thank you for your time, and I thank you for your attention. Now I'll ask Mrs. Tracey Horne to come up." Mrs.Tracey Horne: "Good evening Your Worship and Members of Council, and many friends. I consider them all friends and we are a community and a very proud community in Oro-Medonte, as I think you can obviously see this evening. Because of the announcement, obviously a number of my points are at this point (inaudible) until we find out further details because as we did decide from the original study, I will take the traffic and haul route into consideration given the points of where we live. For those of you that don't know where I live, it's 1960 Old Barrie Road East, at the corner of the 1zth Concession and the Old Barrie Road in the red brick house that would have been severely damaged with the original proposal. What I'd like to bring to everyone's attention here, and hopefully not repeat things that have been given because everything has been done so wonderfully, but I do need to address a few things, and in particular Councillor McConnell's reaction to a statement a few moments ago when we expressed our thoughts on what's happened with these reports because there is some good information that needs to be available. The reports - this is how I spent my Christmas, and this is how a lot of us spent our Christmas, our holidays, going through them, and we don't have the background that Skelton Brumwell does - none of us do. But, we've made every effort to go through these as thoroughly as possible to bring out the points that concern our community, and there are many points here that leave the validity of the reports in serious question. The first one that I have is the noise study. On December 15th I called Catherine (inaudible), and I have probably pronounced her name wrong and I apologize, from Acoustics Canada Limited of Thornhill, because I took exception to her conclusion at the end, to which she signed her name, that and I quote 'the potential noise impact of the addition of pit traffic on the off site haul route is generally considered not noticeable to most people and therefore considered very minor'. I also quote here 'that with the recommended mitigation measures, the resulting sound exposure is that all receptors comply with the MaE guidelines most of the time'. Now I take concern over the noise; we have small children, we're in a community, my husband works full time, we have sleep that's obviously needed, we know our members of the community and the seniors and what not, and health concerns that way, so I wanted to question this as to how they could say that noise will have no impact. Not just (inaudible due to flipping the tape)..... ...Catherine, as Mr. Hunt said, I questioned her as to her report and how she could come to that conclusion. I told her that looking out from my kitchen window, I could see whoever turned the corner - I know who's going by every hour of the day because I am that close to the road, and at the time these so-called proposals were done, I could tell you whether or not they were breathing or not. Her reply to me was, 'Is your driveway that close to the road? I thought in the country you had long driveways!' and I said 'Excuse me', I said, 'Weren't you even here?' and she said, 'No'. I said, 'How could you as a professional sign a report and give all the information in this report, and you didn't even view the situation, the area, the people, the impact that it would have?' And if that's taken place with one report, what about the rest? As Mr. Hunt referred to the Sydenham studies of 1993, it's not '98, and it was done at a quarry that obviously has no comparison to this area. Why is there not a recent study, using the pits on the 13th? There are a lot of questions here. The traffic study is 1996- it has not even mentioned 1999. We had a great summer - somebody could have taken a study of the traffic. There was plenty of it! I see it every day! The agricultural study, I'm sorry, the archeological study - I called him too; I have a wonderful phone bill I'd like to submit to somebody! Archeological Incorporated, Mr. Jim Wilson, I spoke to him on December 15th, he's in London, and on the 3rd page of his report he would like to acknowledge the completion of this report was facilitated by the interest of the following individuals and lists Mr. Glen Stewart, Ms. Ann Gio, Gary Bell. I consider that conflict of interest in completing a report that is supposed to be objective. I further questioned him because I couldn't find anywhere the (inaudible) on the historical report about discussing the history of our wonderful area with anyone that has been here for a significant period of time, and we happen to have many important members of our community that have been here for many, many years and can shed a lot of light on what took p!ace long b~fore even a few members of the Council were here. And he did not question them. His reply to me was that he questioned two of the landowners that the gravel pit will be on. Now, my understanding is one of the la,ndow~ers .has ,only been here for about 30 years. That does not constitute historical Information. And the other landowner, I'm not sure ~xactly ~here he stands but he does also not have complete historical information, Why not go to the gentlemen within the area that do know - the members of the Historical Society, those who could point to 'Yes, we do have records that there was something that took place on that property'. Now I don't know if they would have found anything or not, but I would think that if they took that procedure it would be a more complete report that they could be submitting. So his response to me with that was 'Well, if I could find anyone that had a story to tell' or if they had ever picked up anything on that property and kept it in a box in the garage, he'd be more than happy to come back and reassess it! Why should that be on the onus of the community to do that? Is that not on the onus of those who are preparing the report that they're done properly? It leads to the loss of credibility for all of the reports. I have 7 pages and 26 points on the problems with the traffic and haul route, which we are hoping is now no longer an issue. But again with my lack of expertise in that, how could I come up with all those problems in a report that was supposed to be done appropriately? It was not! There was no consideration as to specifics - everything was very vague. Nothing was put in with regard to the safety for the community, and we do take notice to the fact that right now as it stands yesterday, it appears to be across a land haul route, but it does not address, and I think Council needs to look at addressing the situation of maintaining that the 12th Concession as a 'No Truck' route, because if the haul route's across, empty trucks could still turn our corner if there is no restriction on them. Any empty truck that is trying to get back to the pit as fast as possible to get another load for the day to add to their pockets will use the fastest route, and if the haul route across country has some 54,000 a year going, that may be a little congested at times for some of those drivers that are wishing to make more that day. They then in turn will use Rugby. There still is a question of safety at Rugby, even with the cross country route supposedly in place. I have to also mention concerns over the dust. As a Registered Nurse I am well aware of the amount of difficulty that dust causes in respiratory conditions of which many members of our community suffer from. The dust that will be created with the pit and with the haul route, depending on what is put in place with the cross country haul route as for berms, etc., needs to be looked at. There should be, and why is there not in any of these reports an indication of what the prevailing winds are? Do we not have others that are from the community that experience it every day that know they come from the north west? There should be studies to show how that is going to impact from the pit the dust that will take place. The noise level of course will affect health concerns too, and that does need to be addressed. The water table, now we have had just wonderful, magnificent reports on that with members of Big Cedar and also from Mr. Hunt. I take a more basic view of it and the simple fact of removing all of that natural filtration will mean that the spills that do take place, because there will be according to the plans on-site fuel tanks above ground. Now there is nowhere in the plan security measures for those tanks. And unfortunately as our society grows, there happens to be a lot of incidents of vandalism, and who is going to be responsible if somebody vandalizes those fuel tanks and it enters the system and damages our water supply? A lot of things in these reports are there, but with no further consideration, no specific explanation, no specific point, and there is no reason why the zoning should be given prior to a number of these specifics put into place. It's like putting the cart before the horse! Get the zoning and then we'll figure it out! No! For the safety and the preservation of our community, these specifics should be in place before the zoning is granted. And that is not done in these studies. So I also wish that the studies are redone according to proper procedures and according to the information that is obvious in the area - the noise study, the archeological study, the safety study with the traffic whether or not there be, there should not be any traffic on the 12th (inaudible). I do not know if that's been part of the agreement because obviously this has just been announced. I certainly wasn't aware this afternoon as I talked to many people. A lot has to be looked into yet. The hours of operation, I talked to many in the last 24 hours and I talked to residents of Big Cedar, but we fully agree that the 7 to 7 is reasonable within the community if for some reason this Council saw fit to approve this. I have to take exception again from a health perspective that as the sheet stood that we received last Wednesday evening at Rugby Hall, the hour would start at 6 for the trucks but not until 7 for extraction, and that would mean that there would be trucks running for a whole hour because drivers do not shut those trucks down, and that would be a large concentration of truck emissions and with the prevailing winds, it would be a large impact on health concerns, early every single morning for 25 years! That needs to be looked at. There's a lot of things here that seem to be simply put across and not be addressed. Also with the rehabilitation, the reports about rehabilitation or the information about rehabilitation in the reports, again is rather vague. Why not have specifics as to what Mr. Stewart has done in all of his other pits to rehabilitate? I haven't been (inaudible) to the pit on the 13th but I've seen that pit since its original start many years ago and I can clearly see it from many different views, both from the 13th and the 14th, etc., and I cannot see a lot of rehabilitation. We should as a community be more aware of what is going to take place in rehabilitation because a few of us do still plan on being in Rugby 25 years from now. I do! It's unfortunate that there may be a consensus with the applicant that a lot of the conditions will go away simply with time due to some of the age of those in the area. I'm not leaving Rugby - I don't plan on leaving Rugby! As I told someone, when my husband purchased our home in Rugby 5 years ago, we had waited 10 years to come back to Rugby. My husband and my son are generations of Homes now, and we had up until last September 3 generations in Rugby. We now only have 2. There are 3 generations of Robertsons in Rugby. This is a community that needs to continue in the year 2000, continue in this new millenium, not be destroyed. I never even looked at my home when I bought it. Now if any of you are married, you would know that's highly unlikely for a wife not to view a home before you purchase it, but that's how much I wanted to be in Rugby. Because the community really is a true community, and if the proposals take place, it will destroy that community. And I don't think the Council of Oro-Medonte wants to do that, particularly Vfith the vision that they have that Mr. Hunt so clearly stated that they wrot~not too long ago. We want to continue this community for many, many, many years to come. The situation has put a great deal of stress on everyone. It's put a great deal of unfortunate impact on families at a time of year that I also take exception to, and I'd like Council to be aware of that, because we found it very inconsiderate that it took place over the Christmas holidays and the new year, and for you to be receiving the information this evening for the first time as a collective, be aware that we as a community have been dealing with this for many, many weeks and have put many, many hours into it, and neglected many, many other things, because we do care about what happens in Rugby and Big Cedar, and in Oro-Medonte as a whole. We really hope that you care too. Thank you." Brian Enalish: "Your Worship, Council, community, thanks for letting me talk. I think part of the problem coming this late in talking is that everybody has had a chance to talk to everyone already. I'd like to just make a number of points, and I'm going to try to make this fast. I'd like to state again what some of the others have said. This decision should be made on facts, and I've spent a lot of time.." Mavor Beard: "Excuse me, could we have your name please?" Brian Enalish: "Sorry, I'm Brian English. I'm from the community of Rugby. I've spent a lot of time looking at these maps and studies over and over, and I found the same thing, Estimates and predictions, A lot of the information contradicts itself even. I think everybody that's heard any presentation has heard Glen Stewart himself say there will be no washing plant in the pit - it's going to be a dry pit. Why does it say right on the map that there is going to be a washing pit? This is how incomplete and inaccurate these studies and maps are. Having seen all this, it raises the question - who's going to be policing all this? When there are agreements made and guidelines to follow, they're working up there and we're not comfortable that all these rules will be followed. I'd like somebody to explain how it will be policed. Any rules that are made, (inaudible), we do oppose the pit. Worst case scenario and the pit does go in, we want all agreements to be held if ownership or management of the pit ever changes. We'd like that on paper. There's nothing right now that we've seen that would hold another owner to the agreements. If the pit does happen, we're talking 270 acres of pit - that's huge! And it's very close to us. We'd like to see it reduced, maybe 200 acres. We'd like to see the south boundary moved northward. That would create a much bigger barrier between Rugby and the pit. We'd like to stay a more reasonable distance from the water table. We'd like to see more testing done. Again, right on the chart it says 'approximate water table level'. They're talking about coming within 5 feet of our water table! Water is the main thing for life and when you're talking about approximate levels of water table and digging down a hundred feet, what if they're off a little bit? We want to see tests and we want to see studies that are accurate. According to the meeting on November 2, 1999 here with the Oro Moraine, you're studying this and you're looking into it. We'd like to see this put off at least until you've done that and it's been completed, and you feel comfortable guaranteeing the community that there's not going to be any quality or quantity effect on our water supplies. It's a pretty tough thing to do. Hours of operation, again, 7 - 7 rather than 6 - 10. That's the hours of hauling. We'd like to see the hours of operations actually 8 - 5, the normal working day. I don't think that's unreasonable, and certainly not on Sundays. More berms and trees. They have to move the top soil somewhere anyways. Why is there so few berms on the maps there? That whole south boundary moved northward could be all brand new trees at very little expense to them but a very important thing to us. The tonnage - 650,000 tonnes per year! I think it's estimated that there's only going to be 325,000 or is it 350,000 tonnes taken out. Let's lower that tonnage. Some more solid numbers. You can't bring in an agreement figuring 325,000 or 350,000 tonnes and then agree to 650,000. It's great to hear that there's a route found over the 13th. It's the only practical solution, and we really appreciate you finding that one. I think it would be very easy for them, since they're digging a pit, to run the 1 zth over top as an overpass so that the trucks are going underneath and the traffic on the 12th is going over top, There is no need for any access from the 12th to the pit. Having said that, as a volunteer firefighter I can understand the emergency situations, They would want us there quickly and we want to be there quickly. A locked gate access would make a lot of sense with provisions for us to access the pit quickly and easily. These are a number of points that we want noted now. There are probably more to come but we have had a short time, Going back to the information it's hard to look at this and narrow down all the facts when we don't have solid facts, Things tend to change. Thank you." Nelson Robertson: "Your Worship, members of Council and all (inaudible). My name is Nelson Robertson and most of the items I have in mind have pretty well been covered, but there are a couple that I would like to present. I would like to thank Mr. Stewart for finding the route across country which I proposed in my first letter to him in 1998, One thing I was going to say is about the reports. One of the reports states that under 300 vehicles use the 1 zth Line per day. Now I don't know where they come up with this figure because in August and October 1998, at different times during the day between 7 and 5 p.m., a total of 9 1/2 hours, I personally counted 323 passenger vehicles, and 3 trucks - 2 of these were service trucks. So, a total of 326 vehicles with still 14 1/2 hours to go in that period. So I don't know where they come up with the figures. Most of these passenger vehicles were senior citizens from Big Cedar. With the traffic count in your reports of 1996 on County Road 11 stating an average of 2,350 average daily. When I counted for 11 1/2 hours of the County Road 11, I counted 1,945 vehicles, or 204 per hour. They were talking of hauling for 16 hours a day, so in 16 hours, there would be 2,264 and we still have another 8 hours to go! If you average in the trucks that are going to be used, 496, this would make it a total of 3,760 in 16 hours. The report states from the perspective of the residents of Rugby, the operation will not be observed as it is lower than the height of land, etc. I beg to pardon with them because I have a picture of my patio where every time I sit down for a meal I can see this view. And they're saying (inaudible). I also know arrangements made to have any berms other than the entrance to the pit off of the 12th Line, but now that's being changed, but there is no provisions in any of those reports for berms to go along here, It was mentioned to me when I showed this picture that (inaudible) off the trees. So I guess there's a few trees along the fence line and they're supposed to be these berms. Another report on the pit excavation, the processing operation would not effect the community. Use of the pit will be buffered or observed as a significant business. Again, according to reports, no negative impact is expected. Well, what does that mean? If someone were (inaudible) on the ground water table - not expected. The points have been covered, but (inaudible due to changing the tape). The pictures that they had in here showing the 1zth Line - I can't see any houses in there at all. But look at the picture behind us! It's (inaudible - laughing and audience talking, etc.) This is the report and this is the pictures that were taken showing concern with the houses. It's a deceiving thing. I also have pictures that they were showing of the intersection that would give you a great view of the (inaudible - much background talking and moving around, etc.) The winds you know are supposed to be prevailing from north and north west. In my opinion the pit should not be licensed because of the effect it is going to have on a large number of people. And again, getting back to the reports, people reading these reports and having had to make decisions on them, not knowing the area would be very misguided. And how can a report be objective when done by Gary Bell and Associates, even though they have pictures showing, that doesn't give them a very good example of the roadway or show what effect the pit would have on the water supply. We can live without gravel, but we can't live without water! I thank you very much." Mayor Beard: "In the interest of people in the audience, if you wish to take a short break or a washroom break, feel free just to do so." Ted Dunean: "My name is Ted Duncan and I live at the corner of the Bass Lake Side Road and the 9th Concession of the Township, and I'd like to voice my opposition to this proposed gravel pit on both sides of the 1zth Line. The new pit is within 3 or 4 miles of my home. Now I add a little bit of change from what has been going here because I can speak from experience when it comes to living beside a gravel pit. My home is situated on the Oro Moraine and is beside a current gravel pit. It's a small one, at least I consider it small, not the size of what's proposed here. Once the trucking season starts, so does the noise. Truck after truck after truck passing my place and slowly climbing the hill up the 9th going to the Old Barrie Road. It creates a lot of noise. I can feel from what some people are talking about things starting early in the morning. It's not so bad in the winter time when all your windows are closed, but in the summer time when your windows are open, the noise travels a long way, even though my lot is well treed. Trucks arrive between 6 and 6:30 and they blow their horns to wake up the pit person, and they also wake us up too! And it goes all day like that. Now some days are worse than others depending on where the gravel is going to, A number of years ago the pit beside me was delivering gravel to the Versa Care in Orillia and all that swampy area is filled with gravel from Oro- Medonte. Those trucks, we timed it one day, were coming down the hill and then going back up the hill every 30 seconds. And when we were outside, that's all we heard. It's not so bad now because the trucks are going in at the top of the pit so I don't get the empty ones going by my place, just the full ones going up the hill, and you know what it's like with a dump truck trying to change gears to go slowly up a hill. Not only that, it's the dust. When the dry season comes you get dust, and my place is right on the corner, so I ended up surrounded on two sides with the gravel trucks. Even though my lot is treed, it still allows the dust to come up and everything gets covered. I have a pool - you have to vacuum it often because it gets filled with dust. And that's another point - in the winter time when you think there would be no dust, but the machinery and the gravel crew are getting ready to sort and that sort of thing, and if the wind is right, coming from the west, I've gone out in the morning and my roof is covered in snow and also covered with dust. Anyway, getting back to the roads - the Township has tried to keep the dust down and I guess that's in conjunction with the gravel pit operator, and the gravel pit operator is a local businessman, and I have no quarrel with him. He is a nice fellow. But still, his operation is not compatible with me living there. When the roads, it's hard to say when the roads get covered with the creosote to prevent more oil, I'm not sure what the composition of the material is that they put on the roads to stop the dust. It's either two or three weeks after the spring, so you still get all kinds of dust before it's put on because you can't put it on too early. The road has to be graded and things like that, and then in the summer time, things wear off and when we have a rain storm, they have to grade the hill, and that stops the dust inhibitor as well. So when you phone the Township, they complain about not having enough budget for that I can understand that with things the way are today, but when you have an operation like that and you have operations like this all around the Township, I think there should be budget enough every time and all the time for that. Maybe it figures to make sure all the roads are paved. That would be an interesting concept! Heavy trucks require top grade roads, but who pays? This should be arranged up front before any gravel is removed, and a few cents a ton in my opinion is not enough. This should be an arrangement that can be reviewed and updated every two years or every year so that if conditions change and the road has to be upgraded, it's not put on the tax payer. It's put on those huge trucks that are going by you on the road. The pit operators have the best of intentions in trying to make living conditions livable for the neighbours, but life around pits will forever be changed. Nothing is ever the same. I am also against this pit because of potential for harm to the aquifer that underlies the Moraine. The very gravel we take out is what holds and cleans the water. The aquifer is currently under pressure from commercial bottlers mining the water too. We get all our water from this Moraine and we must protect it. If you look at the map of Old Oro and see where gravel pits are currently in operation and are planned for opening, you'll see a line of them, They are lined up right across this Township, splitting it in two. Right now they're in open areas, now there are a lot of areas on the Moraine that are treed, and as a member of the Orillia Fish and Game Conservation Club, I hope that none of those areas ever come under the gun for extraction, although if you look on the map that's what they are. If you lose, that's it. That's the beauty of this Township - you travel the roads and you see the beautiful trees and the overhanging growth, especially on the 10th and the 9th, and I could name a few others. So what I'm saying here is, this is just one in a long line of requests that you've had or Councils before you have had. And when does it stop? I'm not sure! We keep getting things that we fight - all those people around the ¡th Concession fought the pits there, and I hope that all of you people here were there to help them fight for it, but they have the pits and I know that some of those people are contemplating moving or have moved already. When in this Township are we going to stop this madness? This is a beautiful rural place to live. Subdivisions and gravel pits destroy that beauty. This gravel pit and others like it must be stopped! But are you, Mayor and Council of Oro ready to do that? Thank you. I look around this room and see a lot of older people. My daughter wrote a letter today and she is currently a student at Park Street Collegiate and she would like to give you her comments as welL" Ms. Nancv Duncan: "Mayor and Council. I am speaking here to express my opposition to the proposed gravel pit on the 12th Line near Rugby. I have just finished doing an independent study for my OAC Science and Society class on the importance of moraines to eco systems and human water resources. The Township's efforts in attempting to gather more information about water levels in the Oro Moraine are appreciated as are the public information meetings on these issues. I am opposed to the approval of this gravel pit because although the Moraine is naturally one of the richest areas in aggregate reserves, it is also the most sensitive to aggregate extraction. The spaces in between the sand and gravel that compose the Moraine retain and filter water, giving the Moraine a sponge-like quality. As a result of this, these aggregates are essential to the Moraine's important hydrogeological functions as the site of head waters for area rivers and creeks, After completing my assignment in school, I have learned that a major problem is that we don't completely understand how our underground water resources function. I have also learned that unfortunately, development for economic gain tends to take precedence over environmental preservation, research and understanding where our precious and fragile natural resources are concerned. I am young and I do not know all the right answers, nor even how to ask all of the right questions, but I hope that as I grow older I will not have to ask the question 'How can this be fixed?' There are a number of gravel pits in the Township already. I live beside one and the noise and emissions from passing trucks is not pleasant. I cannot help but wonder if there will be a time when we decide that there are enough gravel pits on the Oro Moraine. In my opinion that time is now. Thank you." Ernie Drvden: "Mr. Mayor and members of Council, and ladies and gentlemen. My name is Ernie Dryden and I'd like to make a statement on behalf of the Horseshoe Valley Property Owners Association. In view of the need to protect the Oro Moraine, which the Official Plan considers to be the heart of the Township's natural heritage and a major groundwater recharge area, the Horseshoe Valley Property Owners Association opposes this proposal and by-law amendment. We believe no further gravel pits should be opened until it has been determined conclusively that our water supply will not be adversely affected by such extraction. We must protect our most important resource, groundwater. We would further ask Council to seek out the means to place a levy on each ton of aggregate which is now being extracted from the Township. Our Township has a great need to provide safer roads, research into our groundwater resources, as well as permanence to our infrastructure as a whole. To help provide this, we have a valuable resource, aggregates, which are worth far more than the 4 1/2 cents per ton we understand the pit operators now pay - 4 1/2 cents! We would formally ask the Oro-Medonte Council to set up a meeting of the various government officials to seek out such a levy. We would ask Council to allow our Association to be part of such a meeting as well as any other groups who wish to participate. Thank you." John Hawke: "My name is John Hawke and we live at Rugby Estates where I have been a tax payer in Oro Township since 1968. At present we own 3 properties, all of which will be affected by the proposed gravel pit and the haulage systems. My history goes back a long way with gravel pits in Rugby. I drove a gravel truck in 1968 and took gravel out of Jack Scott's little pit behind his barn with a single axle truck back in those days before the big ones. I watched the development of that pit over the last 35 years, and the adjacent areas. Before I begin with alii really want to say, I would like to make a comment in respect to haulage policing. I attended several OMB hearings for a quarry that went into Severn Township for the last few years because I owned a house on the truck route which I have now sold. To be honest, the truck route didn't seem to bother it that much in selling the property, but I ended being on the (inaudible) committee for a short period of time when the pit went into operation a couple of years ago. Now what was agreed to there was that the OMB, and this is what I suggest to Council that if this application was approved, that there is no reason that this couldn't be done here rather than having to go to the OMB. And what they said there was that any truck that was found to be not using the truck route was to be reported by the public to the owner of the pit or to the weigh scales, and if the same truck was reported twice, that truck would not go out to extract loads from that pit. Now whether or not that was maintained we don't know, but that was the agreement in writing and to me it made sense with the problems we have here. Now I know that we have the Truax Pit and we don't know for sure what they're doing as far as hauling back and forth. We have local deliveries which has to be understood, but I leave that with you as a possibility of policing. Getting to the route, this has been my concern from the word GO because there is no question in my mind that someday that gravel is going to be extracted. To me, I had 5 potential routes in my mind when it was being discussed. The worst one was going down into downtown Rugby, which was completely asinine as far as I was concerned for many reasons. The next worst one was a proposal which quoted 'to come down the blind line between the 11 th and the 1 zth within 2,000 feet of our subdivision of Rugby Estates. Needless to say, I didn't like that one either. Okay, then we need to find another route and I'm excited about it, but I still say that it's the third worst route as possible. I'd like to see a route further south on the south side of Larry Booth's farm going across the 13th, which would remove this route almost a half a mile further away from Big Cedar. Now, we come into a problem and this is what I'd like to address because I haven't heard it addressed yet at any of these meetings. Many years ago whenever Simpsons Sears opened a store, Eatons built one beside it. Now you know for Eatons maybe it wasn't good, but that's what happened, Today we have people like Wal-Mart and Home Depot opening box stores side by side as you march your way up the highway. First it was Barrie, and now it's time for it to be Orillia. In Rugby, we have 2 aggregate producers and 5 or 6 landowners involved in this process. I would like to hope that the group could come together, in other words, Mr. Stewart, the people from Blue Circle, the 5 or 6 landowners form a committee or a planning committee, call it planning if you wish, and take a look at where you're going, what you're doing, and maybe get away from I don't know if it's animosities or misunderstandings or what between the groups, because what we have now is a patchwork quilt. Now Mr. Stewart's got control this far, Blue Circle is down here, and you can't go across there because they're here. Well, for the betterment of this area, I think it's very important that another level of planning be introduced to take a look at those problems, Now I know to revise this route mentioned tonight and come down on the south side of Mr. Booth's farm means going through property which I understand is owned by the Johnson family and they own property on both sides where that route would have to go. I understand that they are partly committed, I'm not sure, to Blue Circle which makes it kind of embarrassing for Glen Stewart to get a route to go through it. Well, maybe it will be 20 years before that farmland will be used for a pit, and at least for those 20 years we could have a truck route across it if we could agree on it, and avoid going another half mile closer to Big Cedar. So that's my first worst plan, The plan that I still feel, and again needs co-operation between everybody concerned, is to come through more southerly, coming on the site through the Barrie Road, with more so less a south portion of the proposed extraction areas, it means a different bunch of landowners, it means different aggregate operators, but to come across there going onto the 13th, not too far from where the weigh scale is now from Blue Circle, Maybe you could get together and build one weigh scale for both operators. It might save some money. And use the 13th as it's being used at the present time. I think I've said what I want to say. I'm sorry I don't have it in writing. I adlibbed it, but anyhow, I hope that we can work together. I do thank Glen for working on this haul route last week, because that was a great relief to me as far as where we live in Rugby Estates. Thank you very much." Dr. Don Munroe: "Mr. Mayor, Councillors and community, friends and neighbours. I know we've been sitting a long time and I didn't know if I should just get up here and hear myself talk. I'm Dr. Don Munroe, and I'm with the Injury and Wellness Management. I thought everything has been said very well by a number of people, but the last speaker, Mr. Hawke, is a neighbour of mine and a few other people have left the impression that there is room for a compromise here, In my opinion there is no compromise. Mr. Stewart, I don't know him, but he's local and I like that and I like the idea that he's tried to come to some agreement and I like that because LaFarge is the other person out there, and they're the world's biggest conglomorant and I don't think there would be any dealing with those people. I also know the landowners and I can't blame them, and if I was sitting on all that money, I might be tempted, and thank God I'm not. I'm just sitting on a little 2 acre piece of lot that's not worth that much and maybe less if this goes through. So I can't blame them. We might all do it. And I wouldn't blame Mr. Robertson here if he suddenly got a big price, or Larry Booth if he suddenly was offered money, a lot of money to sell out. And Mr. Robertson, he doesn't want to sell out from what I understand, and it's hard on him. Who would want to make a lot of money and move away to some place where there is no gravel pit? Well, why are we being asked to do that? We, I've spoken the other day and we have already begun (inaudible). We already have a lot of pits in this area! We are doing our share to help with the development of this Province of Ontario! We are doing a lot, so why do they want to have us do more? If we can't stop this pit with all these people with 2 communities, then there is absolutely no stopping any pit anywhere! He said he sits beside a pit and there's nothing that can be done now. He can maybe move away. I talked to a person from Fergus Hill and I mentioned about this, and he said that he could hear the (inaudible due to changing the tape)... There's a big forest between them and the pit, and they said, 'Oh the dust. The dust isn't from there. You don't know where the dust comes from. The dust is in our house all the time.' It's been spoken about. Nobody has spoken about the lighting. The night sky is glowing over these pits when I go by and see the big bright lights. Horseshoe Valley has destroyed the night light up there. The Casino has destroyed the night light over on the other side. Where can you look out and see the stars any more?" Someone from the audience said "Big Cedar" and a round of applause arose from the floor. Dr. Don Munroe: "For a while! We all know how people around here put the big 500 watt lights up, and I wish those were banned, but this would be even bigger! So we've talked about pollution, we've talked about water tables, one cannot underestimate the effect of that water table. I'm a little off topic, but I had 2 truck loads of water delivered to my place taken out of that aquifer on the 9th Concession I believe, to put on my hockey rink. Two truck loads of potable water! I said why? I just need it out of the lake. I want to make a skating rink for my boys. He said, 'Well, we have to do this'. Two truck loads of water, drinkable water, Oro water which is as far as I am concerned is the best water in the world (applause) just being dumped in my backyard! How come? Why is that happening? So I'm carrying this a little further - I'm challenging this Council and I'm so proud of that Council for the words that we heard earlier, what they have written down. I'm so proud to live in Oro-Medonte with what they have as their vision and the idea that the vision of this Oro-Medonte is to have this water study. I'm proud to be here. I was proud to see them stand up against (inaudible). I don't know if anybody agreed with it, but at least I saw them standing up for something bigger than self-interest So I can't understand, I can't see how this Council could even contemplate allowing this pit to go through with what was said earlier, what Mr. Hunt said - I can't understand it. So to me, when some of the other speakers stood up and said 'Well, if it goes through, let's do these ideas.' I can't buy that! You know, you might sneak it through. We've got - I went up there - we've got 3 or 4 on the ¡tho I know some people who bought property before those pits opened - it's a shame. They've got a Christmas tree farm up there now. It's a shame what has been done up there, but it has to be done in the name of progress! Then the 8th and then we've got them over on Bass Lake Side Road, the Truax property. We've got them on the 13th. I went up to Fergus Hill and looked at that. It's a beautiful sight now when the leaves are off the trees and you get to see the beautiful hills of sand and gravel. (laughter and applause). I want to take a picture of it, especially in this bleak weather, so you can really see the beauty of it! What a shame! But now we've got this one, and when we've got two communities, we've got the highest point of land. If you people, I mean a lot of people like to jog and like to run, some of us are a little lazy and like to drive from Big Cedar and come up on the 12th and take a look at the view. You look across (inaudible), and these people know that! But the beautifiul Lake Simcoe, beautiful, and we're going to have a pit on each side - we just can't do it! I don't care if you build bridges under or over or if you put tarps over it - you can't do it! Now you're probably going to be asked by Mr. Stewart and LaFarge and everybody to open up, and I've got the map right here. I asked for it, and I want to see all the pit locations right across from the ¡th right across from Edgar right through. We just mentioned the pits - they're all designated pit areas, so when Mr. Hawke actually was saying it was going to go through, that just made me get up! I said I have to! (applause) Because we've got to! Somebody told me this - she said 'No, it's going to go through'. That was my thought at first, and then when I read about what our Council has said in their planning documents and after I met with some people around and I started thinking, 'No this doesn't have to go through. We can stop it. We can stop it here.' Maybe the Provincial Government can do what they want, they've destroyed the Ministry of Natural Resources, but we can stop them here. That's what it's about. It's about our Council, it's about you people, it's about our community! We can stop what we have to stop! (applause) I once thought of the OMB regarding the Rudy estate down where the Stephen Leacock Home is, and I discovered the forest there one time. I was riding through with my son on the back of my bike, and I thought, 'This is a jungle!' I've been around the world, I've been to jungles, This is a jungle right in Orillia - what a beautiful place! I hadn't known about it - I just happened to find it! And all of a sudden, it's a development. Now those developers came through with their plans like these, and we have shown that these plans are questionable, but they came up with a development and promised that it would look like the Stephen Leacock Home. Now I don't know if you people have been down there, but that place does not - my mother lives there, she loves it - but it does not look like the Stephen Leacock Home. And we thought, and I went out there with the OMB to look at the trees - we wanted to keep the trees, that was all it came down to, to keep the trees. Everything else was gone, but just fight for the trees. We all went down and fought for the trees. And they walked around it and said 'Yes we'll do this' and 'Yes we'll to that'. Well, my friend who cuts down trees cut down the last of those trees just two years ago. There's no trees there any more. The big oak trees that were right there beside the Stephen Leacock Home are gone! So there, you can't trust these studies. I do work for the Ontario Government in which we arbitrate between people who have been hurt in car accidents and they say they're hurt, and the insurance company says 'Well, you're not hurt.' So it gets to be a big fight! And so, we have a group of experts over here who work for the lawyers and their reports all say 'These individuals are hurt'. Now we have another group of experts over here who all work for the insurance industry. Funny thing! Their experts all say 'There's nothing wrong with them!' So I know studies can show what they want to show, so you can't be fooled, and I think that our Council will think that anybody here sees through the risk of reports. And we've shown those report to be questionable. But I just can back from the emotional, I don't have any statistics, I just have a love for Oro, Oro-Medonte, I love Medonte! To be honest with you, when I was looking for property, I liked Medonte better than Oro. You know why? I don't know, but I think you were the Mayor in Medonte at that time! But I liked that feeling of the Council, I liked it. I talked to nice people. Oro seemed to be 'let's make sure we can put (inaudible). I think that now that we've amalgamated, we've got the best of both! I'm hoping that the attitude of the Medonte people had of just keeping the pristine nature will overflow into Oro. I think that this is the start of it. I think this shows and I think somebody mentioned we want to know where you vote on it. We want to know where each of you stand, where it counts. I know, I'm sure that some of you are in for development, but PLEASE, think of that young lady. Don't think of development in the short range. Just think of the big picture. And if you want to see the big picture, just drive down the 12th, just drive through Oro, Oro-Medonte. It's beautiful. And don't destroy it all - please, Thank you very much." Dawn Patterson: "Your Worship and members of Council. My name is Dawn Patterson and I own and operate Dawn's New Morning Bed and Breakfast on Old Barrie Road. Now I'm coming to you from a different perspective. Three years ago in December, we bought our beautiful home in Oro-Medonte. My husband Bruce lived in Pickering all his life and thought he would never move from that area. We came here after looking in many, many areas and found our beautiful home. In September of 1997, I approached Council in opening the Bed and Breakfast. That was a dream of mine for many years. And I was approved. It took me 7 months, but I was approved, and I had some of you come, or the Mayor come and open my Bed and Breakfast in a ribbon ceremony. As it takes 3 to 5 years to get my business going, I'm working very hard at it and we have had some wonderful people from all over Europe, the U.S. and Ontario. I live on the "S" bend between the 14th and the 15th Line, and when I hear people say, stand up and say the trucks start at 6 in the morning, weill can guarantee you that they start at 5 in the morning! And I would ask anyone to come and be at my home at 5:00 in the morning and I can let you know. The Bed and Breakfast I opened in this beautiful, beautiful town of Oro- Medonte, the Township of Oro-Medonte, and I have my guests say to me, 'Oh what a beautiful place. You are a little paradise in a big, big place.' And if we're going to have that much traffic go through and me being on the US" bend, there's already problems with the traffic. Coming out of my driveway, there's already problems with drainage running down the hill and into my driveway from spring when there's a thaw because the road is deteriorating. It's just been repaved in 1997 and there's still a problem. I can't imagine what's going to happen to me if there's another 2 or 3 hundred trucks going by my place. I can't imagine that my life is going to be that I'll be running the Bed and Breakfast and that I'll be a part of your tourist trade, giving the people in the community a place to stay when they're living in Big Cedar and they don't have a place to put their family up or whatever, I can't imagine it. I'm asking you to please think about this and I thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak with you." Lvnn Stoddart: "Mayor Beard and Council members. My name is Lynn Stoddart and I too live at Rugby Estates, which is not too far from the proposed gravel pit at the corner of the 11th Concession and Old Barrie Road. I'd like to start by saying that I agree with my neighbour Don Munroe 100% that we're completely opposed to this. I would like to commend our neighbours in Rugby for their in-depth hard work and research that they've done on behalf of the neighbours in the area. We moved here (inaudible) to the Rugby area 6 years ago. We lived in the City and our main objective was to have a rural life for our 3 young children, We searched all through south and central Ontario from west of Toronto to east of Toronto, and we stumbled across Oro-Medonte and absolutely fell in love with it. It won our hearts immediately for many reasons - it's rural setting, it's proximity to lakes and to Orillia and Barrie. The number 1 reason was the beauty. We were just completely struck by the scenic gentle rolling hills, the forests and the beautiful farms and homes. Friends and family that come to visit us are always commenting on the very beautiful scenery. Even people who come from Orillia to Rugby. What image does Oro-Medonte Township want to present to visitors and tourists? That we love gravel pits or that we love our natural beautiful land? In the back of my mind I think once a gravel pit, always a gravel pit. I would like to really question how do you rehabilitate a gravel pit back to farmland? What are the specific procedures? Can you give us a specific site that we could go to see, Mr. Stewart, that you have rehabilitated? Is it rehabilitated back to agricultural land? And I would urge the Council to pursue that as well. And I'm very worried about safety as well with travelling in and out of Orillia with 3 young children in the van. If any of you have traveled on the Old Barrie Road in either direction, to have a several ton gravel truck lumbering towards you as you're trying to make the bend up Fergus Hill, you hold your life in your hands with that huge gravel truck lumbering down towards you. We're proud to have the opportunity to raise our children in this Township in a rural community, but a massive gravel pit that would put hiking, biking, skiing, breathing and drinking a distance of our home was not in our dreams for either us or our children when we moved here. In closing, I would just like to say I was really impressed with the signs that the Township put up at the perimeter of the Township, One that comes to mind is 'Proud Heritage, Exciting Future', and we see these on all the perimeter entrances I guess to the Township area to greet potential tourists and visitors. I was just wondering, does 'Proud Heritage', how true does that ring if we're going to have gravel pits at the back door of a small rural community and village, and 'Exciting Future', does that mean yet another gravel pit? Thank you." Mavor Beard: "Next question please. Okay, next statement, first question! For the second time, are there any further questions? For the third time." Bill Frampton: "I actually have a question. My name is Bill Frampton and I live on the 13th. My question is to Glen Stewart specifically and it's a tough question about the route overland, two questions about the new overland by-pass that is proposed. The first question is, is it going to be gravel or paved, and if it's going to be gravel, are there going to be noise abatement systems in place for gravel trucks crossing, because the noise will carry to Big Cedar and also across that by-pass." Glen Stewart: "There would be pavement on the 13th and the road across would be crushed asphalt." Bill Frampton: "Second question is the entrance to the pit is likely to stay in the same place, is that correct, in your original proposal? Are you going to change the entrance to the pit so they don't travel from the front from the south end of the pit down to where the by-pass is? Will you change the entrance at the opposite end? Okay. Just clarification. My third ~uestion is both to Council and to Glen Stewart, I've been living on the 13 h for 8 years now. I deal with gravel trucks every day as I drive to and from work, as I work in Orillia, and there is, I can't tell you the number of times that I've driven over the hill near Anderson's place, down towards the entrance to the gravel pits, and there are trucks that come roaring out of either of those gravel pits without stopping. It happens numerous times. We're talking about increasing the truck traffic along the 13th by 200 trucks a day potentially. What sort of safety precautions is this Council prepared to take to ensure the safety of the citizens who travel, walk, bike, ride along that roadway, and what safety precautions are the owners going to take to ensure the safety of the residents?" Mavor Beard: "Weill can speak for the Council, and one of the things is that the policing being paid by the Township will increase, because we do have a lot more pull with the police in the case of traffic violations. We mention it to the police and they do respond. The problem is that as soon as one driver gets ticketed for going through a stop sign and/or speeding, then they all know about it because they've got the radios, And also in response to that as well, there was a couple of problems with drivers in some of the pits and we phoned the pit owners and the pit owner tells the driver don't bother coming back. So that is it, there are measures, and they're not always effective because as we say, you get rid of one and there's two more to deal with." Glen Stewart: "We do have safety meetings every month and if there are a lot of problems, we want to know about it and we will definitely reprimand the drivers. There will be, through the Council of Oro Township, reconstruction on the 13th Line, the hill will be lowered (inaudible)." I. Bill Frampton: "And just my last point I'd like to make. You talk about quality of life issues or social impacts and with this change in the haul route and the increased truck traffic that's going to be going down the 13th, I'm forced into a position of trying to decide do I move my family for health and safety concerns, or do I stay here? I think that's an unfair position to put any resident in this Township into and I hope you consider this." Mayor Beard: "Next question please, Next question please, At this point I believe Mr. Bell wants to say something more, do you Mr. Bell, or were you? I believe that's what I was told earlier. I would like to, and there are a lot of people here, and I would like to make a statement about something that has come up, and that's to do with the water extraction and the gravel extraction. Now, a number of months ago, I wrote a letter about water extraction and a price per tonne or per litre going to the Township to do studies regarding those ground waters, and I was very politely told that that wasn't going to happen at this point. The same with gravel extraction. Now the only way that you can get the Province to change is for people to have a movement, to write to government to say change it, increase the per tonne if that's what's required to maintain the studies and all that we have to do, allow us to charge those who use the bulk water a price per litre for taking this water out. They aren't responding very well to the letter we sent and perhaps that's something that we as a community can start to do, because we need to know what's going on with this water, we need to do these studies, but somebody has to pay for it. I think it's because of Provincial legislation that it's a user pay system, those who are taking it out should be the ones who are paying for it. Mr. Bell, you would like to make some comments at this time? By the way, before anybody leaves, could they make sure they sign the attendance sheet please? Could we have silence please, because there are people who are leaving, could they do so quietly because Mr. Bell is going to do some statements at this time and the meeting is still in progress." Garv Bell: "Ladies and gentlemen. There's a few things I'd like to respond to because we have heard many comments tonight, we've had a lot of positive ideas and a lot of constructive criticism. It's Glen's intention and our obligation to take all of that and to improve the pit design application as part of the process and then bring it back to your Council and yourselves. Some positive avenues of communication that I can give you so that you can go away tonight knowing (inaudible due to interruptions and movement in the room). The question of Sunday operation - Sunday operation is neither permitted by the Township's by- law (change of tape)... and control in truck fleets, especially on the return trips, and we've been discussing that and improving methods of controlling the return trips so that having avoided the 1zth for delivery, we don't get the empties on it as well. There are returns to the Township. There is the basic $ ,04 a tonne that's established. This development continues to support the jobs and economic development here in the municipality and in the area. The assessed value of the active area of gravel pits is increased to industrial assessment and therefore municipal taxes are supported by that part of the activity, And the larger question we've heard - there needs to be a balancing of the overall interests, social, environmental and the economic. Your municipality has in 1997 established an Official Plan that worked towards establishing that balance, and it has designated this particular area, this particular property, as mineral aggregate resources for extraction - not the whole of the Moraine, but only those areas where the ~ . aggregates are in significant quality and quantity. And as per the tests there, they have to be extracted in an environmentally and socially responsible manner. The ground water is protected by pit applications that are above the water table. Glen has been operating Pit 5 which includes in part the water table for some 20 years, and there are no problems with the water table there. Recharge of the very important ground water table is not jeopardized by gravel pit extraction to above the water table. Some people have said that recharge is actually enhanced because there's more infiltration available by the run off. Protection of the forests - yes, that's important and that's been addressed by operational methods on site and by additional set backs to both sets of forests. The site operation management issues (inaudible) interest to ensure safety, operational site security, The comments that we have received tonight from a number of people, the photographs, they all work towards dealing with individual problems and concerns, and improving the plans and drawings on the operational methods. Dust will be controlled on the roads. Glen has supplied the proposals to you, Yes, there's a balance needed there of finding the best haul route, but that's been done now and Glen through agreements with the municipality will fulfil all that he is required to do. Thank you." Mavor Beard: "Council wishes to thank all those in attendance for your participation and will consider all the matters before reaching a decision. If you wish to be notified on the passing of the proposed amendment, would you please leave your name and address with the Clerk." Motion No.1 Moved by Craig, Seconded by Sommers Be it resolved that this Special Meeting of Council for P75-98, Proposed Amendment to the Zoning By-law, Concession 13, Part Lot 9, and Concession 12, Part of Lot 8 and 9, (formerly within the Township of Oro). now be adjourned at 9:53 p,m. Carried. A tape of the meeting is available for review.